Highway Roadsides: First US state to freely allow farmers whose farmlands are next to public...

...roads and highways to plant and harvest a forage crop on the strip of public land that is next to the road and highway and, if the highway has one, the median. [Farmers need forage crops for their livestock and letting them farm the strips of land next to roads and highways will enable them to devote more farmland to crops that can be eaten by humans and/or raise more livestock that will then feed more people.] The forage crop must either be a short crop or a crop that is harvested while it is still short. [Currently, these public strips of land go to waste and result in county governments paying government workers (and all the related costs) to regularly mow them to keep their height down. By allowing farmers to farm the land, county governments can keep the height of plants next to a lot of their roads and highways in check without cost.] The state law must not require farmers to get permission from the state or any government agency to farm these strips of land but does lay down what can and cannot be grown and how the land must be maintained. For those strips of land next to public lands, the state law must allow farmers who border these strips to farm them and if two farms border the same strip, they are to equally divide such between themselves and farm theirs separately. The farmer must pick up all trash along the road before planting or harvesting. If the section of highway is part of an Adopt-A-Highway or Sponsor-A-Highway program, the adopters/sponsors must inform the farmer well ahead of time and schedule their trash pick-up with the farmer so the farmer can immediately seed/harvest after the group has picked up the trash. [It is because the trash is an unknown that the crops that can be planted must be forage crops and not ones meant for direct human consumption.]

Future Challenges:

1) First major US state (9 million or more population) to pass the above law.

2) First nation to pass the above law for all their roads and highways.

Discussion:
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